Irish posturing about being anti-colonial is just fake

'The Battle of Somah', 1838, painted by Horace Vernet during the period of French conquest of Algeria

Published:12:27Monday 19 November 2018

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The Irish pose as principled republicans who stand against militarism, imperialism and colonialism, and who stand for neutrality and native peoples.

But they have shown that this pose is fake.

Letter to the editor

Never mind the absurdity and neediness of an English speaking nation joining a community of French speaking nations. If the Irish were truly principled in their opposition to imperialism and British history the Irish would not have joined the French Commonwealth (La Francophonie).

The history of France is every bit as bad and bloody as the British. Many would argue it was far worse.

The French stole land and oppressed and brutalised native peoples right across the globe.

From Algeria, to North America, the Caribbean and India, Vietnam, the South Pacific and across swathes of Africa (most notably Rwanda), the French subjugated people, stole land, and expropriated resources.

To this day you meet republicans who still rue the fact that the French fleet failed to land in Ireland in aide of the United Irishmen.

The naive thinking and lack of understanding of world history is remarkable. The French would have treated the Irish as abominably as any other foreign native.

John Philpot Curran said in the trial of United Irishman Owen Kirwan: “The French Consul would reward his rapacious generals and soldiers by parcelling out the soil of the island among them, and by dividing you into lots of serfs to till the respective lands to which they belonged.”

The decision to join the French Commonwealth shows that Irish sentiment towards Britain is not one of principle, but one of base antipathy.